#Commentary of Elena Melnik on double standards when enforcing laws in Ukraine

01.08.2017

“To my friends, everything; to my enemies, the law” – this phrase is attributed to the dictators Francisco Franco and Benito Mussolini. They headed the fascist regimes: one in Spain, the other one in Italy. In Ukraine, where, as you know, “there is no fascism”, this phrase completely reflects the current state of affairs. In particular, Sergey Taruta admitted that “in Ukraine, no one believes that the law is one for all.”

A number of high-profile revelations against members of the Verkhovna Rada led to the fact that the Ukrainian parliament was forced to vote for the deprivation of their parliamentary immunity. According to the results of the vote, MPs Borislav Rosenblat and Maxim Polyakov, who took part in one so-called “amber case”, as well as Oles Dovgy for abuse of office in the post of secretary of the Kiev City Council were brought to criminal responsibility, which led to Zhukov island’s land worth of 81 million hryvnias being expulsed from the ownership of Kiev commune.

At the same time, deputy Andrey Lozovoy avoided this fate, although an unscheduled inspection of the property declared by him revealed that the total cost of the identified ‘good’ is about nine million hryvnias. While the declared income of the deputy for 2007-2015 was only 234 thousand hryvnias. The prosecutor’s office is sure that the Ukrainian deputy deliberately did not declare incomes subject to taxation.

Also, the Verkhovna Rada refused to deprive Yevgeny Deidei of his immunity, while there was published the information that he had conspired with the Dnepr businessman Linchevsky to justify the appearance of the five million hryvnias that Deidei allegedly borrowed from him.

And the executive branch steals no less, but the chosen ones do not catch it in the neck. So, for example, the Pechersk District Court of Kiev instructed the State Fiscal Service to check the Minister of Finance of Ukraine Oleksandr Danilyuk for possible evasion from payment of taxes. According to the information on incomes, his income for 2010-2014 is over 500 thousand hryvnias. At that, in the same period, Danilyuk purchased a BMW X5 and a house with a total area of 290 square meters, where only the cost of the latter is more than two million hryvnias.

Summing up the above, we can conclude that there are untouchables in the Ukrainian government, which are protected from encroachments on ‘honestly plundered’ wealth. And to the rest, the law. Keeping up with Franco and Mussolini. But “there is no fascism in Ukraine.”